Yeah, it'd definitely be better in a group. It's very difficult to coordinate on the 4v4 game modes without voice chat, although I think the danger of being coordinated in 4v4 is that you'd squash the other team, assuming they're not normally also groups of 4. The combat system has that nice balance between being intuitive but difficult to master.

I really like the idea that, as the results of each season come in, the castles change based on which faction conquered what territory by the the map's reset for the next season. That's the sort of "living history" that I like seeing in sports games where after a few season's I might look up what happened to one of my former players.

Has anyone tried Dangerous Golf? It's the last day of it being a few quid and it looks like a blast - essentially Burnout's Crash mode but replace the car with a golf ball and the traffic with household items. Not sure if it's really shallow though

The worry about it being really shallow will seem correct when you start it, but the game sloowly feeds you new mechanics. So it actually isn't shallow, but does a really good job at convincing you it is unless you persevere. Some really important controls are also never explained and only appear in the tips menu as I remember (like slowing down time - which is super useful and opens up so much more gameplay). Once you get into the levels that have multiple flags the game feels a lot more full.

Just finished Episode 3 of Life is Strange and boy, this game is blowing me away. It's sucked me in to its world like no other game since Shenmue, sixteen years ago. It's definitely open to replay too, judging by the PS Trophies I've missed, but the branching paths in the story (as well as the beautiful locations) make me want to spend countless hours just inhabiting that world. I enjoyed my teenage years but always think about what if I'd done such and such differently, so it's engaging me on different levels and while my childhood was pretty different to Max's, it's a reminder how precious time is.

YES MATE.Big Life is Strange fan. I loved it right from the first episode which a lot of people wrote off. Some of the characters were irritating, sure, but very realistically so. From that opening, the story was a wonderful mix of character piece and thought-provoking exploration of time travel.

Like Mass Effect, or any other story-driven game, before it, I heard a lot of complaints about the ending.

Spoiler:

Like ME3 I personally didn't have an issue. I think the point of the various choices and beats up to that moment was to paint a picture of Max as a character and create the groundwork for that final decision.

The beauty of that end moment is that everyone I've spoken to seems pretty convinced their decision was the only decision, despite the fact people are actually pretty 50/50.

I was going to post this is the Persona 5 thread but not sure if anyone else is playing it on here and I didn't want to triple combo, it is also what I'm playing on PS4 and dam its good.

I'm now 15hrs into the game and done the first dungeon, it still feels like I've barely scratched the surface the pacing is so good as 15hrs is a long time to still feel like the game hasn't really got going but how everything is introduced is so well done.

If you have a PS4 or PS3 (Looking at you Balla) and have a remote interest in JRPGs, you need to be playing this game as this might be the gold standard now for the genre.

Started the first Uncharted (as part of the remastered trilogy on PS4). First impressions are that it's a beautiful (if it looked anything like this in 2007, very beautiful!) game with a gripping story but the gameplay is largely average. The cover shooting is my main complaint, but having played the Tomb Raider remake before this, I've been spoilt by the satisfying combat in that. I'm also worried it's short as I've played for an hour, 90 mins maybe, and it's saying I'm 22% through the campaign.

I'm currently addicted to Rory McIlroy's PGA Tour and recommend it if you ever got hooked on Mario Golf. It has the same control system and was patched a few times in 2016 so it's a more complete package than what the reviews said in 2015.

I definitely treated him very differently. He's still a crazy dude but his heart is in the right place. Episode 4/5 still upset me. It's Chloe's story as much as Max's, and by the end of the game I feel closer to Chloe than any other video game character. Girl's been through a lot of shit without any semblance of stability since she was a child. My personal cannon is still rooted around my original choices, but it was interesting to see things play out differently. I maintain that both endings are valid, even though I'd still personally choose to sacrifice Chloe and hold onto those words she speaks just before the choice - that our time together was real and can't be taken away. I couldn't handle the guilt trip all the residents put on Max just before she comes out of her nightmare, and I don't know that Chloe could either even though she trusts in Max's final decision. It was cool to see the other ending play out this time anyway, and reminded me of what an incredible game this really is.

Read a crazy theory that Rachel is an alternate timeline Max, which is interesting to think about - Max's entire life before coming back to the bay is largely blurred out and she has the same body type as Rachel, to the point of fooling Joyce, Nathan, and Frank. The idea is that Max's reality hopping eventually allowed her and Rachel to exist, such that Max could have her life in Seattle and an alternate Max lived on with Chloe. I don't like to think that theory is true, it's a bit messy, but still interesting to speculate on. Read another that Max is a mutant - of the X-Men kind - which made me piss myself

Also read (some) of a long rant about the game's ending by an unhappy customer. I agree with part of his main point, that this story is about Max growing into a more self-assured person. I disagree with his big waa point though, that the game was too deterministic and neutered Max's character development. Chloe literally dies in every episode (except 3, but she dies a lot in episode 4 and 5). The game is constantly telling us that Chloe will die/is dead. Chloe was the anomaly. By saving her countless times, the (blue) butterfly effect created the perfect storm. Without Chloe, Max has no powers, or at least they never manifested themselves in the past (unless she's Rachel, I guess), so while all the other decisions in the game matter to the extent of shaping Max as a character (for both herself and the player), the game (or Max's powers) is fundamentally about that moment with the blue haired girl in the bathroom.

Playing Uncharted 1 again, this time on Hard mode to try and unlock the Infinite Ammo cheat. I've not gone through a game again on a harder difficulty since since the days of Splinter Cell and Gears of War.

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, specifically Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. I played the Crash games quite a bit on the PSone, but that was twenty years ago. Maybe my memory is a bit off, but something doesn't seem quite right. I'm not sure if the controls aren't as immediately tight as I remember, and if my depth perception has gotten worse with age, but it's all much more difficult than I remember. I used to be able to rack up 99 lives without too much hassle, but now I'm all-too-often finding myself one death off of a game over. I'll persevere with it as I think it's a quality remaster (that would be class on Switch, natch), but it's tough going so far.